Circle of death

A SKELETON found in a shallow grave at Stonehenge is of a man who was executed, say archaeologists. The find has shifted their ideas about what Stonehenge was used for, and when.

The skeleton shows definite signs of decapitation with a metal sword. "It has completely changed the way I think about Stonehenge," says Mike Pitts, an independent archaeologist who examined it. The bones were unearthed in 1923, but were misplaced during the Second World War. Until last year they were hidden away in a cardboard box in the stores of London's Natural History Museum.

Jacqueline McKinley of the organisation Wessex Archaeology says it is obvious that the skeleton's fourth neck vertebra had been chopped. The angle of the break is aligned with a nick on its chin, showing that the victim had been attacked from behind. And because the cut was a clean one, it must have been inflicted ...

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